


Measure of a Man

by aftershocks



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Avengers: Age of Ultron Trailer, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Civil War (Marvel), Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Two Compliant, references to comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 04:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2608094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aftershocks/pseuds/aftershocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hammer moves when Steve tries to pick it up.  This is what happens afterwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Measure of a Man

“C’mon, Cap.”

Steve grits his teeth and pulls. The hammer wiggles.

Actually, the hammer does a lot more than wiggle. Steve feels it start to lift away from the table, and it’s light as a feather, and there’s energy surging up his arm. It’s terrifying. 

He lets the hammer down and mimes a struggle. Thor laughs. “Nothing.”

Steve is on the verge of a panic attack. Either he is delusional, or the hammer is, and it must be him, because Thor is, without a doubt, worthy. He stretches a grin across his face and sits back down. Thor hands him his drink. Steve throws it back.

It’s a relief when Ultron crashes the party and starts quoting Pinocchio. 

Natasha glares at Tony. “You let it watch _Disney movies_?” 

“Not ‘Big Hero 6,’ I hope,” says Clint. Steve misses the reference, but judging by the lack of response, so does everyone else.

A dozen more robots fly through the wall. Thor hefts his hammer. Natasha, Clint, Hill, Rhodey, and Steve all reach for their guns.

“Remind me to kill you later, Tony,” says Rhodey. 

The AIs attack.

Later, when they are picking through the rubble, Steve reaches for the hammer and catches himself at the last second. He calls Thor over to lift it, and distracts himself by helping Bruce bandage the others up.

 

Steve does not sleep that night. He sits in the kitchen and nurses a beer. It’s too malty for his tastes, but it’s better than the PBR that Clint keeps in the fridge. Thor sits with him and texts Jane. The hammer is beside him. Steve avoids looking at it; when it swims into his peripheral vision, guilt slams into him like the train where he lost Bucky. It’s been months since the Winter Soldier deposited him on the shore and disappeared, and despite the combined efforts of Natasha, Sam, and himself, they have still not found Bucky. 

The hammer is wrong. Steve Rogers is far from worthy.

He does not realize he is staring at it until Thor sets his phone down and reaches across the table to rest a hand on top of one of Steve’s.

“You cannot lift Mjolnir by looking at it,” says Thor.

“Apparently I can’t lift it no matter what I do,” says Steve. The words have a bitter edge, which he disguises with what he hopes is a winning smile. Thor looks troubled. Steve thinks that Thor’s kicked-puppy-dog eyes could bring anyone, man or god, to their knees. “Thor, it’s fine.”

“Truly?”

“Truly. I’m not a god.” Thor’s frown deepens. “How’s Jane?”

Thor smiles again and the crushing weight in Steve’s chest lessens a little. “The lady Jane has adopted a new cat. His name is Sagan. Would you like to see him?”

“Yeah, sure.”

With his free hand, Thor pushes his phone across the table. A grey kitten with a white patch on its nose stares up at Steve from the screen. Steve grins. Thor laughs. “Had I known it was so easy to bring the light back to your eyes, I would have shown you earlier.”

“Thank you, Thor.” Thor takes his phone back and Steve returns to his beer. He looks back at Thor a minute later; the demi-god’s hand has not moved from his own. “I’ll need my hand back at some point.”

“You are still unhappy.”

“You can’t fix this.”

Thor raises an eyebrow at him and nods as if to acknowledge a challenge. He lifts his hand from Steve’s and uses it to pull the beer across the table, away from Steve. “Perhaps. But this cannot fix anything, either.” Thor passes the phone back over. “Look at the cat.” Steve looks at the cat. “Now listen to me. You will find Bucky. You are a stubborn man, Steven, and not one to give up one your friends. When we have vanquished Anthony’s”— he makes a face like he’s biting into a lemon—“project, I will help you search.” 

“You will?”

“Aye. I do not like to see you in so much pain. “

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Do not say anything. Go to bed. You need your rest if we are to defeat Ultron.”

 

The hammer becomes a running joke. Clint spends hours of his free time tinkering, trying to imitate the trick of the immobile hammer with any tool he can get his hands on. Bruce tries to lift it, hulks out, and tries to lift it again. It does not move. Maria Hill, Coulson, and a Fitz, Simmons, and a handful of others try to pick it up. Fury watches and cackles. Tony scowls whenever Thor swings it and takes to calling it “that bastard.”

Only Steve and Natasha avoid it. Steve has a sneaking suspicion that perhaps Natasha has hefted it in private; in his mind, she swings it with no effort, like she was born with it in her hand. She reinforces his opinion that she is worthy by helping him keep tabs on Bucky. They are catching up.

“He was in Kyrgyzstan two days ago,” she says one night over Shawarma. Steve drops his wrap; tahini-covered chicken pieces skitter across the tabletop. 

“ _Two days? _”__

__“Calm down, Steve. One of my contacts took him in.”_ _

__“He stayed with them?”_ _

__“Apparently he didn’t say much, just handed over a bag of cash and crashed. He asked a couple of questions in the morning and then he left,” she says._ _

__“How do we know it was him?”_ _

__Natasha hands him her phone. The photo is grainy and out-of-focus, but if it isn’t Bucky, it’s his clone. Steve shudders at the thought. Natasha is still talking._ _

__“Sorry, repeat what you just said,” he says._ _

__“My contact gave him the address of an old… of someone I know in Russia. She’ll contact me if she sees him. We’re going to bring him home, Steve.”_ _

__Bruce, Thor, and Clint, who are out with them, are silent. Steve suddenly becomes aware of them again._ _

__“Nice,” says Clint, and offers Natasha a high-five._ _

__Thor wraps an arm around Steve and crushes him to his side for a long hug._ _

__A few weeks later, they find Bucky and bring him home, and Thor offers Steve the hammer once more._ _

__“You cannot say you are not worthy now,” Thor says._ _

__Steve smiles, but does not reach for it._ _

__

__The only time Steve ever sees Thor struggle to wield the hammer is just after he breaks up with Jane._ _

__Skurge comes to earth to attack Thor. The Avengers fight him off, but not before he nearly kills Jane in a jealous rage._ _

__“I cannot put you in danger any longer,” Thor tells Jane when wakes up in the infirmary. Steve gestures to Bruce that he should finish the splint for Steve’s broken arm later, and they excuse themselves._ _

__Jane leaves the tower for good three days later. When Thor lifts Mjolnir from the table that night, he has to pull until he goes red in the face. He catches Steve’s eye._ _

__“A worthy man does not wish death on another, no matter who that person has hurt,” he says._ _

__Steve eyes the hammer and wonders how good its standards of worth are, anyway._ _

__

__When the elementary school blows up and all those kids die, Steve wants to lie down next to them and close his eyes. SHIELD falling apart was only the beginning. The reports come in and the politicians argue and the fear grows. He does not want to see where this will all lead._ _

__Because Steve cannot just surrender to death, he does see. He is horribly present when Tony makes the announcement that he will sign the Superhuman Registration Act and when he comes back to the tower that night. It is his mouth that tells Tony that he is despicable. It is his legs that carry him away and into hiding. He is there for it all._ _

__Tony fights back with words, and then with threats._ _

__What really breaks him, though, is not the poisoned rhetoric that haunts their footsteps or the patrols that take heroes captive. It is Thor._ _

__Steve finds him leaning against the outside wall of their secret headquarters after a late-night patrol. He is crying. Steve sends the others inside and then cradles one of Thor’s giant hands in his own. When Thor and Jane were still together, she would trace the lines in his palm to calm him down. Steve does the same, fingers dancing over natural designs and scars._ _

__“I came to Midgard to protect your people,” says Thor._ _

__“You have protected us, Thor,” says Steve._ _

__“Not well enough.”_ _

__“The explosion wasn’t your fault, Thor. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Those kids just made a mistake.”_ _

__“I did not protect your world from the foolishness of its heroes. I did not protect it from myself.” Mjolnir is on the ground by his feet. He nudges it with a toe. “I am not worthy.”_ _

__Steve kneels before the hammer and wraps his hand around it. It is the first time he has touched it since he almost moved it. He tugs on it; this time, it does not budge._ _

__“Well, someone has to be.” Steve stands. “Thor, pick up your hammer.”_ _

__Thor shakes his head._ _

__“Thor, please.”_ _

__Thor reaches down between them and takes hold of the handle. They both hold their breath._ _

__Thor lifts Mjolnir from the ground._ _

__They both stare at it in his hand, and Steve feels an odd sense of relief. The hammer is not wrong. All those months ago, almost two years, that had been a fluke._ _

__“Thank you, Steven,” says Thor. He leans in and presses a soft kiss to Steve’s mouth, and then he’s gone._ _

__

__“Tony, this is wrong.”_ _

__“No one is asking you to do anything you haven’t done. Everyone knows who you are, Captain. There’s an entire Smithsonian exhibit about you.”_ _

__“This isn’t about me, Tony!”_ _

__“No, that’s right.” Tony’s voice is cold. “This is about the American people. You aren’t worthy of that shield, Captain. If you were, you would cooperate. This is the best way to protect them.”_ _

__“I don’t believe that.”_ _

__“Steve, I don’t want to do this,” says Tony._ _

__“I’m sorry, Tony.”_ _

__

__They take him into custody. Steve is prepared to sit in his cell and rot until the end of time to make up for the civil war that splashed so much blood across American soil, but that is not why he is held captive. He is a dissenter._ _

__He went against Tony Stark._ _

__A public trial is scheduled. Thor visits him beforehand, in the holding cell._ _

__“I have something for you,” says Thor._ _

__Steve is allowed to sit beside him in a small, guarded room. Thor holds Steve’s hand while he cries, and wipes away the tears. The air is heavy, like Thor is waiting for something._ _

__“Thor?”_ _

__“Hush,” says Thor. The door opens. Natasha pokes her head in and nods. “I will return,” says Thor._ _

__Steve bows his head to pray. He opens his eyes to find Thor standing in front of him, holding Mjolnir. Natasha is standing in the doorway, a gun trained on Steve’s head. Thor sets the hammer on the ground._ _

__“Lift it,” he says._ _

__Steve wants to protest, but Thor is giving him the puppy-dog eyes again. He grabs the hammer and pulls, and it moves. He drops it._ _

__“All the way, Steven,” says Thor._ _

__Steve swallows and lifts the hammer. His hands are slick with sweat and shaking, but he hoists it above his head. Thor wraps him in a bear hug. Steve lets the hammer fall to the floor._ _

__“You were always worthy,” says Thor into his ear._ _

__Natasha clears her throat. “It’s time,” she says. Thor releases Steve, scoops up the hammer, and leaves the room. Steve stands and follows Natasha to the court room._ _

__

__The trial is short._ _

__Steve leaves assured of his fate; he will be stripped of his title and spend many years in jail. He is at peace with this ending. As long as Tony finds the note that Steve left for him, Captain America will continue without him._ _

__No is prepared by the bullet, or for Sharon Carter’s killing blow._ _

__Steve hears shouts of anger and pain, including Thor’s. He sees the sky split open and feels rain on his face, and then the world goes black._ _

__Steve Rogers dies with a smile on his face._ _

__He is worthy._ _


End file.
